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This isn’t about fewer books.

Writer's picture: Shelley BairdShelley Baird

Updated: Sep 12, 2023

Despite conducting a ‘cull’ of my TBR pile, which was more of a rearrangement, My TBR Year is not about having fewer books or not buying books. It’s about reading the books I have.


Sure, there are lots of memes on the socials along the lines of ‘There’s nothing wrong with a library of unread books.’ And there isn’t anything wrong with unread books, but my goal is to be more intentional about my reading, not just diving into the latest new release and forgetting about the one I bought last month.


This collection of 200+ unread books didn’t happen quickly. It’s accumulated over years, decades in fact, and it’s a combination of purchases and gifts. One book in my TBR pile was a Christmas present in the early 2000s! It does have the Christmas card as a bookmark about a third of the way in, so I started it, but why didn’t I finish it?


I will give myself a little leeway here. In the early 2000s, I was a copywriter working in radio, writing commercials that averaged 65 words each. Anything I read that didn’t get to the point fast frustrated me. I did read a lot of magazines during this period, but even longer form feature articles made me want to find a pen so I could cross out the unnecessary words. I’m a little more patient now.


Overall, I wouldn’t say I’ve been a regular abandoner of books. Although, my discovery of 15 books with bookmarks in them indicates I’m averaging more than one a year. I usually get through two to three books a month, so in the broader view, the odd ‘didn’t finish/couldn’t finish’ doesn’t seem that bad.


On the other hand, it’s made me wonder why I’ve persisted with finishing books, even if I wasn’t enjoying them. I know of people who are regular abandoners and have no problem saying they didn’t finish something. I will read something until the end, the bitter end, even if I’m not enjoying it. For me to leave a book started but not finished seems unusual.


I don’t think it’s an indicator of the quality of the story or the writing. Some books in this pile of ‘bookmarks’ are best sellers, heralded as some of the greatest books ever written. But I couldn’t get into them. I think for me, it’s more “right book—right time”.




One book in this pile, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, has a beautiful pale blue grosgrain ribbon in it about a quarter of the way through. I started reading this during one of the pandemic lockdowns in 2021. We had moved to Melbourne six months earlier, thinking the worst of the lockdowns was over. (Wrong!) My Dad had passed away a few days into a lockdown that was shaping up to be a long one. My parents lived interstate, so the border restrictions meant I couldn’t get home in time for the funeral. Deep in grief, I thought this book might help me find some hope. I made it to page 32. Clearly, it was not the right time for me to read this book. Almost two years later, should I try again?


I think I will. I’ve decided to keep these not quite ‘to-be-read’ books in the TBR total and perhaps prioritise them in the reading list. However, if I abandon the same book twice, it will go to the street library.


What makes you abandon a book? And more importantly, if you pick it up again, why?

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